Skip to main content

Rewinding



Some time back Maggie (my wife) asked me whether I had any regrets about my life hitherto. “A lot of things were wrong,” I said. “Some mistakes were due to my own nature and quite many more were because I didn’t know how to deal with other people and the games they played.”

“So if you are given another life, you’d live it quite differently?”  She persisted.

“Of course. But that doesn’t mean I’d toe the lines drawn by others. It just means that I’d make new mistakes.” I paused and then continued, “At least they’d be my own mistakes. They are preferable to other people’s truths.”

We can’t go back and correct the mistakes of the past. When I find the dominant political party in the country trying to correct the mistakes or perceived mistakes in the country’s history, I get hiccups.  We can only act in the present. We can only move forward. The past offers us lessons. The mistakes of the past can teach us tremendous lessons, but they cannot be corrected. We shape our future by what we do in the present.  

Walking backward and kicking up dust storms is not only futile but also insane. I don’t want to rewind my life in order to delete anything from it simply because it cannot be done. I would look back in order to draw the right lessons from there.

One of the biggest blunders I committed in the past was to involve myself with certain people. I was a misfit in almost every company. I don’t make good company; I am a loner by nature. I was born to be a loner, I believe. When I gave up companies I found myself a much happier person. Books became my faithful friends. I deserve them only, I guess.

Even today when people of those old companies get my phone number from somewhere or other and call me, I feel jittery. The truth is I have blocked quite many of such numbers. Or I just don’t answer the calls. It’s not because I hate them; it’s because I still don’t know how to deal with them. I don’t want to make a fool of myself anymore.

Suppose I could really delete a part of my life. I would delete those few years in which I had ‘friends’.



Comments

  1. Very good to know about your thoughts about changing the past and i appreciate your point of view that " i'd make new mistakes"...very much logical it is.
    i liked your "loner" nature...same is here.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There are many people who don't like much company, it looks like.

      Delete
  2. I came across a funny quote recently that perfectly sums up my life's dilemma: "My life is a constant struggle of wanting to go out and have fun with people, while simultaneously trying to avoid all human contact." I guess we would be more social if we were invisible or maybe simply not being judged.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Not being judged. I guess that's the crux. And then also being made fun of, being manipulated, being tossed about... It's too much. So I don't think there can be any fun anyway and so I have no desire to go out and meet anyone.

      Delete
  3. Interesting observations on 'friends'. yes, one shpuld be doing what makes one happy and not because everyone does so or you are expected to fall in line with the 'norms'.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

When Cricket Becomes War

Illustration by Copilot Designer Why did India agree to play Pakistan at all if the animosity runs so deep that Indian players could not even extend the customary handshake: a simple ritual that embodies the very essence of sportsmanship? Cricket is not war, in the first place. When a nation turns a game into a war, it does not defeat its rival; it only wages war on its own culture, poisoning its acclaimed greatness. India which claims to be Viswaguru , the world’s Guru, is degenerating itself day after day with mounting hatred against everyone who is not Hindu. How can we forget what India did to a young cricket player named Mohammed Siraj , especially in this context? In the recent test series against England, India achieved an unexpected draw because of Siraj. 1113 balls and 23 wickets. He was instrumental in India’s series-levelling victory in the final Test at the Oval and was declared the Player of the Match. But India did not celebrate him. Instead, it mocked him for his o...

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl

Death as a Sculptor

Book Discussion An Introductory Note : This is not a book review but a reflection on one of the many themes in The Infatuations , novel by Javier Marias. If you have any intention of reading the novel, please be forewarned that this post contains spoilers. For my review of the book, without spoilers, read an earlier post: The Infatuations (2013). D eath can reshape the reality for the survivors of the departed. For example, a man’s death can entirely alter the lives of his surviving family members: his wife and children, particularly. That sounds like a cliché. Javier Marias’ novel, The Infatuations , shows us that death can alter a lot more; it can reshape meanings, relationships, and even morality of the people affected by the death. Miguel Deverne is killed by an abnormal man right in the beginning of the novel. It seems like an accidental killing. But it isn’t. There are more people than the apparently insane killer involved in the crime and there are motives which are di...

Whose Rama?

Book Review Title: Whose Rama? [Malayalam] Author: T S Syamkumar Publisher: D C Books, Kerala Pages: 352 Rama may be an incarnation of God Vishnu, but is he as noble a man [ Maryada Purushottam ] as he is projected to be by certain sections of Hindus? This is the theme of Dr Syamkumar’s book, written in Malayalam. There is no English translation available yet. Rama is a creation of the Brahmins, asserts the author of this book. The Ramayana upholds the unjust caste system created by Brahmins for their own wellbeing. Everyone else exists for the sake of the Brahmin wellbeing. If the Kshatriyas are given the role of rulers, it is only because the Brahmins need such men to fight and die for them. Valmiki’s Rama too upheld that unjust system merely because that was his Kshatriya-dharma, allotted by the Brahmins. One of the many evils that Valmiki’s Rama perpetrates heartlessly is the killing of Shambuka, a boy who belonged to a low caste but chose to become an ascetic. The...

In this Wonderland

I didn’t write anything in the last few days. Nor did I feel any urge to write. I don’t know if this lack of interest to write is what’s called writer’s block. Or is it simple disenchantment with whatever is happening around me? We’re living in a time that offers much, too much, to writers. The whole world looks like a complex plot for a gigantic epic. The line between truth and fiction has disappeared. Mass murders have become no-news. Animals get more compassion than fellow human beings. Even their excreta are venerated! Folk tales are presented as scientific truths while scientific truths are sacrificed on the altar of political expediency. When the young generation in Nepal set fire to their Parliament and Supreme Court buildings, they were making an unmistakable statement: that they are sick of their political leaders and their systems. Is there any country whose leaders don’t sicken their citizens? I’m just wondering. Maybe, there are good leaders still left in a few coun...